THE EARTH. 



from the moon, having less weight, and being 

 lightest, will be pressed on all sides, by those 

 that, having more attraction, are heavier : they 

 will be pressed, I say, on all sides; and the 

 heavier waters flowing in, will make them swell 

 and rise in an eminence directly opposite to that 

 on the other side of the globe, caused by the 

 more immediate influence of the moon. 



In this manner the moon, in one diurnal revo- 

 lution, produces two tides ; one raised imme- 

 diately under the sphere of its influence, and the 

 other directly opposite to it. As the moon tra- 

 vels, this vast body of waters rears upward, as if 

 to watch its motions ; and pursues the same con~ 

 stant rotation. However, in this great work of 

 raising the tides, the sun has no small share ; it 

 produces its own tides constantly every day, just 

 as the moon does, but in a much less degree, be- 

 cause the sun is at an immensely greater dis- 

 tance. Thus there are solar tides, and lunar 

 tides. When the forces of these two great lumi- 

 naries concur, which they always do when they 

 are either in the same, or in opposite parts of the 

 heavens, they jointly produce a much greater 

 tide, than when they are so situated in the 

 heavens, as each to make peculiar tides of their 

 own. To express the very same thing technically, 

 in the conjunctions and oppositions of the sun 

 and moon, the attraction of the sun conspires with 

 the attraction of the moon ; by which means the 

 high spring-tides are formed. But in the quad, 

 ratures of the sun and moon, the water raised by 

 the one is depressed by the other ; and hence the 



